Fleet Air Arm Group Build

Nice going, Dave, you've been enshrined in the FAA Roster thread.

Nice work - the rigging looks sharp and taut.  Having done the Frog version of this during the last FAA Group Build, I know how hard this can be at this scale

Got the Lusty out as I am on a carrier roll. These A-holes at photobucket really did some serious damage.

After a long dry spell in dry dock; I am determined to finish the Illustrious after meeting the sister of Sub-Lt Tony Wray, observer on L4R at Taranto. Wray's sister, Pat, is still sharp as a tack, funny, and has quite a collection of Illustrious memorabilia.  So, Swordfish planes on deck + crew as shown below. All that is left are the radio aerials, radar, and some miscellaneous bits that I have forgotten;  Planes are ordered by tail number roughly equal to attack order.  Just have to hope that I don't knock off some of the delicate work as I put on the finishing touches.

Illustrious w planes

Some mistakes and omissions here to a stickler for accuracy and I can tell you I will never again attempt to retrofit the Heller kit to some sort of verisimillitude.

Wonderful stuff. i lost all of my Stringbag kits in the move, but I am inspired by you.

WOW what a build!!! Aaargh all you swabbies hic, pardon me, lol i'm still kicking just have not been on the puter for quite some time. Been playing PS4 n doing a lil modelling but starting to get the m-o-j-o back. Glad to see all the builds happening. Not ready to tackle my Buccaneer yet as I have moved and have VERY limited space, a bungalow. Been doing well and hope all is well with everyone here. really missed the forums so sat down with a beer and well i'm here Been working on my Academy 1/72 FW-190A-8, wil ltry and get a pic up soon if anyone's interested. Just bought an Italeri 1/48 F7F-3 Tigercat today, and must say it looks like a very nice kit. Anyways, will try and keep more up to date on the forums and all the great builds happening. Admiral begging your pardon sir, i'm ready for my lashings for being AWOL Have a G'Day peeps!!

Razor I'm lovin' that Stringbag!!! I can't see half of the pics before your post, photobucket has got to do something good for a change.

Lodni I don't think the Admiral will mind at all if ye join this scurvy lot. Beggin'the Admirals pardon sir, i just want to post a pic of my current project and where she stands at the moment.

Lodni, looking forward to seeing the Hellcat

Happy new year everyone - well it is new year's here in Australia!

So the Admiral has flogged me aboard and I am slowly getting going on the Wyvern with a few extra details on the bang seat and the PE ready for priming:

So the office is complete and installed, the camera, rear wheel and engine housing are in too. So ready to close up the fuselage.

Next is the inner wing; here you can see my efforts to get the trailing edge to bend to the correct profile. Also a few hydraulic lines in the wheel bays for some interest.

Well it didn't really work, so I put in some shims on the trailing edge where it bonds to the fuselage. Then glued on the port upper inner wing, which follows the profile better.

See what it's like when the clamps come off.

Nice progress there lost. How well does that kit build up? Lots of headaches, or pretty smoothly?

Hiya Stik,

I reckon it is generally going well, but it does have issues in a few spots, some of which are my fault. When I closed up the fuselage, I was forcing some bits into place which I later found left me with a mismatched seam on the underside:

That was one thing that was my fault. But when it came to getting the upper seam line - wing to fuselage matched up, I could not get this lined up, AND have the under side seam on the trailling edge level.

So I settled for having this seam lined up:

But having a step in the fuselage underside. Part of the problem is there is no good support on the back edge, so (with the plane upside down) the wing just falls into the fuselage. I installed a couple of tabs to hold it at the point where the top seam is good, so I now have a bit of work to do on the underside, but I figured that was easier.

But apart from that, all good so far. This is a big unit, bigger than the hawker sea fury, need to check it against the Me110, will be a similar size I think.

Looks like there are a lot of parts that all have to come together right there, Lostagain.  Good luck, but I'm sure you'll work it all out. Yer'l have to if yer gonna advance in grade here!

Thanks John,

And now for the latest frustration with the kit - all fixable, just a bit of work. The rockets have the fins separate from the body and moulded vertically. Initially I thought this was a good idea as it means the exhaust would be moulded in.  But there is no exhaust and the two halves of the mould were not aligned so there is big mould seam in each face of every rocket. 16 rockets, 8 fin sides each rocket, 128 seams to fix! After a few trials settled on scraping with a knife then a few swipes with a sanding stick, keep me out of trouble for a few hours.

Then try to drill a tiny exhaust hole without stuffing it up...

And the step on the end of every fin needs to be adjusted to fit onto the body, this will take some time... but I'm determined to get my stripes!

The Wyvern is coming together and starting to look like a plane now - and a pretty big one at that:

I have got all the rockets, ratos, flaps, undercarriage etc cleaned up now, so I just need to mount them all up ready for painting.

Looks like a big fish, in a good way.

Painting metallics today using the Vallejo metallics. I was after colour variation so I paint one piece, then put a couple of drops of another colour to get a colour shift.  Seemed to work well, found a few seams that were not good enough for the metallic finish, so sand and polish back and repaint (the torpedo for example)

Well, Seaman,  best ye get yerself ta tha sign in thread, Fleet Air Arm Roster:

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/29/t/167518.aspx

It's agin the regs, but be'in Admiral I'll sign you in there, then it's off to the pumps in the bilge with ya!

After hours of masking, started on the painting. First a chocolate coloured undercoat:

This is going to be a version of the blackbasing where you lay down a mottled base coat and then a very thin blend coat to blend it all together. Have seen Eric use it here, and he is following Doog's videos. So first the squiggle coat to get some tonal variation:

ANd then the blend coat:

So there are some panels I am happy with , but I think it needs another blend coat to knock down the mottle further, especially on the top side of the fuselage.

Also got some spraying on the rockets; green rocket, olive warhead and sky hangers. The rails will be hand painted grey.

Where will you put the skull and crossbones, looks like a pirate plane if I ever saw one.

Yeah, I wasn't too happy with the effect so I resprayed the Sky, and followed it up with a custom mix Extra Dark Sea Grey to match some references, but it may be a touch too dark...

Apart from being real slow, it is coming together well.

I wasn't happy with the EDSG, so I sprayed it lighter. I think the gloss coat I followed with killed the variation in the colour a bit, but it does look better. Decals next!

I like it. Sometimes I wonder what the British were thinking with their designs at the end of the war

Thanks TJ, I like this period, there are some really great looking aircraft, and some wierd ones as the jet age started and the propellor went out of fashion. Sadly never got hold of the Dynavector Douglas Skyshark...

The decals are now on and adding some more colour

Added red stripes to the rockets and the torpedo to signify live ammo...

So another coat of gloss before a light weather...

I have the Dynavector Skyshark kit and also one that Microscale did years ago, both are supposed to be 1/48.  Maybe someday I will get to them, I'm thinking combining the two, and maybe some pieces from a Tamiya A-1 kit.

jeaton01

I have the Dynavector Skyshark kit and also one that Microscale did years ago, both are supposed to be 1/48.  Maybe someday I will get to them, I'm thinking combining the two, and maybe some pieces from a Tamiya A-1 kit.

 

Its not like the Microscale kit is complicated... I built their YF-102 long ago... perfect kit for a single session.